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Korean-American businesswoman Kim Tae-yun.
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Kim Tae-yun is the chairwoman of the TYK Group, a Silicon Valley business with six affiliates and host of satellite broadcasting program The Tae Yun Kim Show, which invites successful notables for a talk. Moving to the U.S. at the age of 23, she saved money for her own business while working as a taekwondo instructor. Now, on a visit to her homeland to give a lecture, she found time to talk to the Chosun Ilbo on Tuesday.
Asked about her striking appearance -- hair died brown and heavy makeup -- she says, ¡°How do I look? Do I look peculiar? But my singular appearance was the strategy I as a small Asian woman adopted to survive in a Caucasian-dominated society. If I looked ordinary in the vast land of America, I wouldn¡¯t have stood out in any way at all.¡±
That is the attitude that has made her a successful businesswoman. Born in Gimcheon, North Gyeongsang Province in Korea, Kim and her family emigrated to the U.S. state of Vermont in 1968. As an immigrant with only a high school diploma, the only job she could find was as a cleaner. But she did not want to be a cleaner forever, so she mulled what she could do with the taekwondo skills she had practised since she was seven. She went to school after school in her neighborhood and asked them to let her teach taekwondo there. Using the money she earned from teaching as seed money, she started a business in Silicon Valley in 1985 with only a computer, which became the start of her success story.
Kim¡¯s company, Lighthouse Worldwide Solutions, is now the world¡¯s leading supplier of particle counters and real-time contamination monitoring systems, and was listed on the Wall Street Journal¡¯s ¡°100 Most Promising Companies¡± in the U.S. in 1995. Annual sales now stand at US$100 million.
¡°Of course, there were people who hurt me or spat at me. But I always tried not to be discouraged,¡± she says. ¡°It wasn¡¯t easy. I could fill the Han River with tears I shed.¡±
During this, her first visit in four years, she will share her secrets to overcoming her limitations as a minority Asian woman on the Kim Tae Yun Show at the COEX in Seoul on Thursday. The event will take the unusual form of an ¡°artlecture¡±, a combination of art and lecture, produced by a Hollywood director and accompanied by a musical performance.
¡°I believe everything depends on our mindset. You just need to remember that it is you that owns your life and face challenges with a can-do spirit,¡± she says.
Kim says she got divorced from her American husband because of her in-laws¡¯ racist attitude. But she is the mother of no fewer than six boys and three girls she adopted.
(englishnews@chosun.com )
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